Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1887-04-01
DIR. TALMAGES SERMON.
"cOME- THOU AND ALL THY HOUSE
INTO THE ARK. :

1t is Not Enough to Teach Your Children
Good Manners, Educate Them and Pro-
vide Literally for Them-You Are Re-
sponsible for Their Souls Welfare.
Dies MONIES, Ia, March 27.-The Rev. T..
De Witt Talmage, D. D., preached in this city
this morning to vast congregation. His
text was Genesis vii, l: "Come thou and all
thy house into the ark" The eloquent
preacher said:
We do not need the Bible to prove the del
uge The biologists hammer announces it.
Sea shells and marine formations on the top
of some of the highest mountains of the earth
prove that at some time the waters washed
over the top of the Alps and the Andes. In
what way the catastrophe came we know not.
Whether by the stroke of comet, or by
flashes of lightning changing the air into
water, OF by stroke of the hand of God, like
the stroke of the ak between the horns of the
OK, the earth staggered. To meet the catas-
trophe God ordered great ship built. 1t
was to be without prov, for it was to sail to
no shore. 1t was to be without helm. for no
human hand should guide it. It was a vast
structure, probably as large as two or three
Cunard steamers. 1t was the Great Eastern
of olden time.
The ship is done The door is open. The
lizards crawl in. The cattle walk in. The
grasshoppers hop in. The birds fly in. The
invitation goes forth to Noah: "Come thou
and all thy house into the ark" Just
one human family embark on the strange
voyage, and 1 hear the door slam shut. A
great storm sweeps along the hills and bends
the cedars until all the branches snap in the
gale There is moan in the wind like unto
the moan of dying world. The blackness
of the heavens is shattered by the flare of the
ightnings that look down into the waters and
throw ghastliness ON the face of the mount
aims. How strange it looksl How suffocat-
ing the air seems! The big drops Of rain
plash upon the upturned faces of those who
are watching the tempest Crash go the
rocks in CONFUSION. Boom! go the burst
ing heavens The inhabitants of the earth,
instead Of fleeing to house top and mountain
top, as men have fancied, sit down in dumb,
white horror to die. For when God grinds
mountains to pieces and lets the ocean slip its
cable, there is no place for men to fly to. See
the ark pitch and tumble in the surf, while
from its windows the passengers look out
upon the shipwreck of a race and the car
cases of dead world. Woe to the mountains!
Woe to tho seal
am no alarmist. When, on Sept. 20, after
the wind has for three days been blowing
from the northeast, you prophesy that the
equinoctial storm is coming you simply state
a fact not to be disputed. Neither am an
alarmist when say that storm is coming,
compared with which Noah's deluge was but
an April shower; and that it is the wisest and
safest for you and for me to get safely
housed for eternity. The invitation that
went forth to Noah sounds in our ears:
9Come thou and all thy house into the ark. /"
Well, how did Noah and his family come
into the arks Did they climb in at the win
dow Or come down the roof? No; they went
through the door. And just so, if we get
into the ark of Gods mercy it will be through
Christ, the door. The entrance to the ark of
old must have been a very large entrance.
We know that it was, from the fact that there
were monster animals in the earlier ages;
and, in order to get them into the ark two
and two according to the Bible statement,
the door must have been very wide and very
high. So the door into the mercy of God is
a large door. We go in, not two by two, but
by hundreds, and by thousands, and by mil
lions. Yea, all the nations of the earth may
go in, ten millions abreast.
The door of the ancient ark was in the side.
So now it is through the side of Christine
pierced side, the wide open side, the heart side
that we enter Aha! the Roman soldier,
thrusting his spear into the Saviour's side,
expected only to let the blood out, but he
opened the way to let all the world in. Oh,
what a broad gospel to preach If a man is
about to give an entertainment, be issues one
or two hundred invitations, carefully put up
and directed to the particular persons whom
he wishes to entertain. But God our Father
makes a banquet, and goes out to the front
door of heaven, and stretches out his hands
over land and sea, and, with voice that PEN
otrates the Hindoo jungle, and the Greenland
ice castle, and Brazilian grove, and English
factory, and American home, cries out:
"Come, for all things are now ready" 1t is
wide doorl The old cSoss has been taken
apart, and its two pieces are stood up for the
door posts, SO far apart that all the world can
come in. Kings scatter treasures on days
of great rejoicing. So Christ, our king,
comes and scatters the jewels of
Heaven. Rowland Hill said that he hoped
to get into Heaven through the crevices of
the door. But he was not obliged thus to go
in. After having preached the Gospel in
Surrey chapel, going up toward Heaven, the
gatekeeper cried: "Lift up your heads, ye
everlasting gates and let this man come in"
The dying thief went in. Richard Baxter
and Robert Newton went In. Europe, Asia,
Africa, North and South America may yet
go through this wide door without crowding.
Ho, every one!-all conditions, all ranks, all
people. Luther said that this truth was
worth carrying on ones knees from Rome to
Jerusalem; but think it worth carrying all
around the globe, and all around the heavens,
that "God SO loved the world that He gave
His only begotten Son, that whosoever be-
ieveth in Him should not perish, but have
everlasting life" Whosoever WILL let him
come through the large door. Archimedes
wanted fulcrum on which to place his
lever, and then he said that he could move
the world. Calvary is the fulcrum and the
cross of Christ is the lever; and by that
power all nations shall yet be lifted
Further, it is door that swings both ways.
do not know whether the door of the ancient
ark was lifted or rolled on hinges; but this
door of Christ open both ways. 1t swings out
toward all our woes; it swings in toward the
raptures of heaven. 1t swings in to let us in;
it swings out to let our ministering ones come
out All are one in Christ Christians on
earth and saints in heaven.
One army of the living God,
At his command we bow;
Part of the host have crossed the flood,
And part are crossing now.
Swing in, o blessed doori until all the
earth shall go in and live. Swing out until
all the heavens come forth to celebrate the
victory.
But, further, it is door with fastenings
The Bible says of Noah: ''The lord shut him
in" A vessel without bulwarks or doors
would not be a safe vessel to go in. WIEN
Noah and his family heard the fastening of
the door Of the ark they were very glad.
Without those doors were fastened the first
heavy surge of the sea would have whelmed
them; and they might as well have persisted
outside the ark as inside the ark. 1.-THE lord
shut him in" Oh, the perfect safety of the
ark! The surf of the sea and the ightnings
OF the sky may be twisted into a garland Of
snow and fre-aeep to deep, storm to storm,
darkness to darkness; but once in the ark, all
is WELL "God shut him in"
There comes upon the good man deluge of
financial trouble. He had his thousands to
lend; now he cannot borrow a dollar. He
once owned store in New York, ard had
branch houses in Boston, Philadelphia and
New Orleans. He owned four horses, and
employed man to keep the dust off his
coach, phaeton, carriage and curricle; now
IA has hard yvOrk tn crat shoes in which fo